


Bar Blues

by ant5b



Category: Disney Duck Universe, DuckTales (Cartoon 2017), Tres Caballeros
Genre: Back at it again with the ducks and the headcanons, Character(s) of Color, Donald is young, Humanized Ducktales, LGBTQ Character of Color, M/M, With all of the insecurities and fears therein, humanized characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 20:49:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11699664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ant5b/pseuds/ant5b
Summary: Even while on shore leave, Donald finds himself feeling adrift and aimless. Joining the Navy was everything he could have ever dreamed of, but now he doesn't know what he wants. Maybe all he needs is the advice of two passionate and energetic strangers?





	Bar Blues

**Author's Note:**

> As a Latina woman, I'm constantly scrounging to find positive representation of my and other Latin American cultures. The Tres Caballeros, while not ideal, was what little I had growing up. I was excited to "reboot" them for this fic, and get rid of the stereotypes they were originally designed with.   
> This is technically in the same universe as my two other humanized Ducktales fics, though you don't have to read those to understand this.   
> See the end of the page for notes :)  
> In closing, I hope you enjoy, and leave a comment if you can!

_ December, 2004  _

_ La Garza Negra  _ was a small bar in Tijuana, not far from the U.S. border, lit from within by opaque crimson lights. It was a quiet bar, the lights made hazy by the cigarette smoke that permeated the air, and the wooden countertop and tables gleamed dully. The noise level was that a low murmur, far from silent, but also leagues away from the pulsing nightclubs just up the street. 

Sitting at the bar still in his service dress whites, with his cap on the counter beside him and hair mussed, was Donald. With one hand he carefully spun his half full bottle of Corona on the countertop, the other propping up his cheek with a fist. He had briefly considered pursuing drunkenness to escape his melancholy, but he didn’t have the energy to act on the impulse. 

Instead Donald listened to the music playing from the radio at the end of the bar, a slow piece with trumpets and guitar. He wondered what his family was doing, over 600 miles away. 

It would be Christmas in just under two weeks, but Donald’s shore leave only lasted until the following night, not nearly long enough to fly to Duckburg for a visit and return to Coronado where his ship was docked. He’d come with a group of his fellow LTJGs to Tijuana, the only thing on their minds being bars, girls, and more bars. Donald imagined that they were trying to recreate the spring break experience of college students their age, but drinking without abandon had never really appealed to him. 

This wasn’t his first time in Mexico either, unlike many of his peers. His Uncle Scrooge had dragged him and Della along on a number of adventures in their adolescence, though it would be more apt to say that  _ he  _ was dragged, and Della was all too eager to tag along. He’d lost count of the number of times and in the number of different countries that Scrooge had busted him trying to ferry some bottle of contraband to their room, while Della somehow always managed to sneak past him undetected. 

He missed his family terribly since joining the Navy, but at the end of his senior year he had been without a single college acceptance letter and a future consisting of endless deadend jobs. Della had always been the better student, better athlete, better twin. Her college acceptance list was practically pages long, and she’d finished high school as their salutatorian. 

The Navy recruitment office had appeared to him like a beacon, a chance to prove that Donald Duckart could  _ make good _ . Scrooge was against it from the start, though only because there wasn’t a profit to be made. His uncle’s naysaying had actually made him feel better, if only because the rest of his family clearly didn't think he was  _ capabl _ e of doing it. He was sure they’d expected him back the moment his required two-years of active duty were complete, but it would be four years in January and Donald genuinely didn't see an end in sight. The thought might have comforted him once, but now he only felt more depressed. 

The chill in the air was nothing like the biting frost of Duckburg, and the Christmas lights he'd seen in shop windows had made him more homesick than he expected. He had already bought and mailed his family’s Christmas presents weeks ago, at his last, longer shore leave in Florida. 

The gifts had included embarrassing “His & Hers” towels for Della and Al*, a scarf for Grandma Duck, a new hat for Gus, and for Aunt Matilda and Uncle Ludwig, in Austria for the holidays, a pair of fleece-lined gloves and, because the kooky professor found anything and everything relentlessly interesting, a book on Russian fairy tales he’d found in a pawn shop. 

For Scrooge he’d bought an absolutely awful Christmas sweater, with the receipt enclosed. On principle, Scrooge wouldn’t accept any form of money, not even gift cards, but something he could return in  _ exchange  _ for cash he would only too gladly welcome. 

Donald just wished he could watch them open their gifts, see the elation on his grandmother’s face, Della’s mock annoyance as she rolled her eyes at his ridiculous gift, see Scrooge’s face pinch in horror before noticing the receipt hidden under the sweater. Donald recalled Christmases past, curled in front of the fireplace with blankets and hot chocolate, Grandma Duck’s vintage record player warbling carols in the background. But instead he was sitting alone on a stool in a dimly lit bar, nursing a bottle of mediocre beer. 

The noise level in the bar had increased, and Donald was considering calling it a night and taking a bus back to the border so he wouldn’t have to worry about the wait when crossing over the next morning. He took a slow swig of his Corona, considering his options, when a loud voice startled him. 

“A sailor drinking alone! I’m not sure if you’re living up to the stereotype or defying it.” 

The voice was strongly accented, and Donald quickly turned to face its owner. The man who had joined him at the bar was Mexican, bronze-skinned and short, with artfully combed black hair and a small mustache. He was wearing a plain collared shirt, jean jacket, and a wide grin. 

“Um…” Donald responded eloquently. 

Not moving from his effortless slouch against the counter, he offered Donald his hand. 

“Pancho Quintero González**,” he said, “But my friends call me Panchito.”

“Donald Duckart,” Donald replied, moving to shake his hand after an uncertain pause. “My friends call me...Donald.”

Pancho laughed. “It’s very nice to meet you, Donald! I’m sorry if I startled you, but you just looked so lonely over here.”

Donald felt his ears burn as embarrassment settled over him like a shroud, and his laughter was stilted. He regretted not leaving earlier. 

“Thanks. But I was about to head out.”

Pancho’s expression immediately became chagrined, and his posture straightened. 

“I didn't mean to embarrass you! Please, don’t leave on my account.”

Donald’s subsequent chuckle came more easily, and while his self-consciousness was still evident in his flushed ears and neck, he didn’t feel as uneasy. Trust him to meet the most earnest stranger in all of Tijuana. 

“No, it’s okay. I wasn’t really in the mood to go out tonight.”

Pancho’s looked sympathetic, but at the same time conspiratorial.  

“Girl troubles?” He asked slyly. 

Donald nearly snorted with laughter. “I  _ wish. _ ”

Pancho’s quicksilver expression barely shifted this time, but now there was something cautious behind his dark eyes. 

“Boy troubles?”

Donald shook his head with sigh and a curl of his lip that could barely be called a smile. “Family troubles, you could say.”

Pancho’s 100-watt smile returned with full force. “Family man, eh? I never would’ve thought.”

_ Donald _ never would've thought that a stranger could make him laugh as much as Pancho did. Or that he could feel so at ease doing so. But his innate discomfort at discussing his feelings with  _ anyone  _ rose to the surface once more, cutting his amusement short. 

“No, that’s not it either,” Donald huffed on the tailend of a laugh. “But-but I don’t want to bother you, I’m fine really.”

The shorter man shrugged, pulling up the stool beside Donald.

“It’s no bother, Donald. I came over because you seemed interesting. An American  _ marinero,  _ drinking quietly at  _ La Garza Negra  _ while the rest of your crew conquer Avenida Revolucioń? Who wouldn’t be curious?”

Donald lifted his now warm Corona to his lips to hide his flattered smile. 

“What about you?” He asked Pancho. “This place doesn’t exactly seem like your style.”

Pancho chuckled, nodding at the old bartender at the end of the bar. “I’m friends with the owner, Manolo. We usually stop here to take a break, and bring Manny some much-needed business.”

He grinned at the bartender as he said this, who flipped him off without looking up from the glass he was cleaning. 

Donald was startled into laughter, while Pancho chuckled heartily. 

Manolo rolled his eyes, and called to someone over at the crowded tables. “ _ José, ven a controllar a tu novio!”  _

Still grinning, Pancho waved his hand in negation, trying to get his laughter under control.  _ “No, Manny, estoy bien!  _ Don’t sic José on me!”

Amused beyond belief, Donald asked, “Who’s José?”

As if on cue, a tall, skinny black man rose from one of the bar tables and began heading toward them at the bar. Donald wondered at this new stranger as he came to a stop beside Pancho. 

Unlike his companion in every way, this man was gangly where Pancho was short, elegantly dressed in a yellow suit that would’ve looked garish on anyone else. His hair was cut in an elegant, smooth and wavy fade, and he was clean shaven. He had a black umbrella hooked over one arm, and his expression seemed to be one of the perpetually amused and at ease. 

“I’m sorry, is Panchito bothering you?” He asked with a small smirk, speaking with a Portuguese accent that took Donald by surprise.

“José!” Pancho said cheerfully. “This is Donald Duckart! He’s having family troubles!”

Donald rubbed the back of his neck with an awkward chuckle, but José hardly batted an eye. He offered his hand with a pleasant smile. 

“José Carioca,” he introduced. “Once again, I’m sorry about Panchito.”

“Hey!”

Donald released José’s hand, feeling more at ease. “So you’re the ‘ _ novio’?”  _

José blinked, but Pancho beamed, slipping an arm around the taller man’s waist. 

“ _ Hablas Español?”  _ He said. 

“A little,” Donald admitted. “I came to Mexico a couple times with my uncle when I was a kid.” 

“Is this your first time in Tijuana, Donal’?” José asked. 

He nodded. “What about you two?” He asked, and nodded toward Manolo behind the bar, “I mean, you clearly aren't tourists.” 

Pancho chortled. “Yes and no. José and I are attending university in San Diego. That’s how we met.”

“What are you studying?” Donald questioned eagerly. 

“Ornithology,” José answered. 

“Huh?”

Pancho snickered again. “It’s the study of birds.”

Donald’s eyes widened, and he leaned back a little in awe. “Oh, wow. Then you two are...finishing graduate school?”

Pancho nodded sagely. “But parties are just as important as studies! We come down to  _ Baja  _ whenever we have free time.”

“Stress kills,” José added with a guileless smile. “Music heals.” 

Donald chuckled incredulously. “That sounds...pretty amazing, actually.”

“I didn’t think you were the party type, Donald!” Pancho said. “Why not join your fellow sailors down the street?”

José went to claim the stool on Donald’s other side, to his embarrassment. 

“Yes, Manolo’s bar is nice, but it’s meant to be a bar where you  _ finish  _ the night, not where you begin and end it.”

Donald resisted the urge to pick at his sleeves as his nervousness mounted. How to explain to two mostly-strangers that despite all his bluster to his family he was homesick, and ashamed to admit it. How despite a successful Navy career he was still jealous of his sister, recently married and accepted to the graduate school of her dreams, with countless friends and the temperament with which to keep them. 

How could he explain the emptiness he felt that worsened with every morning he woke to open ocean and a cold, gray room? That although he’d known Pancho and José for all of half an hour and he longed for the joy they wielded so effortlessly, the confident pace of their lives. 

Eventually Donald just shrugged. “I...I don’t know. I guess I’ve never been one to party.”

“Maybe you’ve just never partied the right way?” Pancho suggested with a big grin. 

“Come out with us, I’m sure you’ll have a good time,” José agreed. 

Even in the face of their earnestness, Donald hesitated. “I don’t wanna be a drag,” he said. 

“You’ve been able to keep up with Panchito this whole time, and while sober no less. I’m sure you’ll be fine,” José retorted cheekily, and Pancho reached across Donald in attempt to smack his boyfriend. 

Once again, they startled Donald into laughter. 

“Okay, okay,” he acquiesced. “I’ll go.” 

“Fantastic!” Pancho cried, rising from his stool. “Let’s get going!”

José rolled his eyes with a smile on his way past Donald, and Donald chuckled as he fished around in his pocket for his wallet. 

On the way out he paid Manolo for the beer, which the bartender took with a grave expression. 

“ _ Buena suerte, _ ” he said. 

Donald only laughed again. All of a sudden, he felt lighter than air. 

“Thanks,” he responded cheerily. 

$$$$$$

Three weeks later when his ship made port in Anchorage, Donald received a letter from Grandma Duck 

Enclosed within was a family photo,  _ Merry Christmas!  _ written on the back in his grandmother’s elegant cursive, surrounded by several other small messages relaying the same sentiment from the rest of the family. 

The photo itself was the usual affair, everyone grouped together in front of the Christmas tree. But Donald’s attention was immediately drawn to Scrooge’s unpleasant expression, and the fact that he was wearing the absolutely horrendous light-up Grinch christmas sweater Donald had gifted him. 

In all, perhaps one of the best belated-Christmas gifts Donald had ever received.    
  


**Author's Note:**

> *HDL’s father and Della’s husband is named after Al Taliaferro, who first mentioned him in his 1938 comic strip Donald's Nephews.
> 
> **Made canon in House of Mouse episode “Not So Goofy,” Panchito's full name is Panchito Romero Miguel Junipero Francisco Quintero González III. “Pistoles” appears to only be a nickname.
> 
> Again, I hope you enjoyed! Please comment and let me know what you thought?


End file.
